Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy

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Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy

by Eric G. Wilson

3.11 · rating details · 340 ratings · 110 reviews

Americans are addicted to happiness. When we're not popping pills, we leaf through scientific studies that take for granted our quest for happiness, or read self-help books by everyone from armchair philosophers and clinical psychologists to the Dalai Lama on how to achieve a trouble-free life: "Stumbling ""on Happiness"; "Authentic Happiness: Usin...moreAmericans are addicted to happiness. When we're not popping pills, we leaf through scientific studies that take for granted our quest for happiness, or read self-help books by everyone from armchair philosophers and clinical psychologists to the Dalai Lama on how to achieve a trouble-free life: "Stumbling ""on Happiness"; "Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive ""Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment"; "The ""Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. "The titles themselves draw a stark portrait of the war on melancholy. More than any other generation, Americans of today believe in the transformative power of positive thinking. But who says we're "supposed "to be happy? Where does it say that in the Bible, or in the Constitution? In "Against Happiness," the scholar Eric G. Wilson argues that melancholia is necessary to any thriving culture, that it is the muse of great literature, painting, music, and innovation--and that it is the force underlying original insights. Francisco Goya, Emily Dickinson, Marcel Proust, and Abraham Lincoln were all confirmed melancholics. So enough Prozac-ing of our brains. Let's embrace our depressive sides as the wellspring of creativity. What most people take for contentment, Wilson argues, is living death, and what the majority takes for depression is a vital force. In Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, Wilson suggests it would be better to relish the blues that make humans people. Eric G. Wilson is the Thomas H. Pritchard Professor of English at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The recipient of several important awards, including a National Humanities Center year-long fellowship, he is the author of five books on the relationship between literature and psychology. Consumer trends and popular medical and psychological interests indicate that Americans are addicted to happiness. At an increasing rate, they pop pills, seek both clinical and non-traditional therapies, read recent scientific studies that take for granted the population's quest for happiness, or buy self-help books by everyone from armchair philosophers and clinical psychologists to the Dalai Lama on how to achieve a trouble-free life: "Stumbling on Happiness," "Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment"; "The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living." The titles themselves draw a stark portrait of the war on melancholy.
More than any other generation, Americans today believe in the transformative power of positive thinking. Happiness is considered a liberty, if not an ultimate life goal. But the scholar Eric G. Wilson argues that melancholia is necessary to any thriving culture, that it is the muse of great literature, painting, music, and innovation--and that it is the force underlying original insights. Francisco Goya, Emily Dickinson, Marcel Proust, and Abraham Lincoln--all confirmed melancholics.
What most people take for contentment, Wilson argues, is living death, and what the majority sees as depressive is a vital force that inspires creativity, spurs ambition, and helps people form more intimate bonds with one another. It's time to throw off the shackles of positivity and relish the blues that make us human. "Mr. Wilson's basic thesis is that, without suffering, the human soul becomes stagnant and empty . . . We must live between the poles of sadness and joy and not try to expunge misery from our lives. Mr. Wilson makes a strong case . . . to deny our essential sadness in the face of a tragic world is to suppress a large part of what we are as human beings."--Colin McGinn, "The Wall Street Journal"" " "Utilitarianism is the philosophical doctrine according to which happiness is the sole intrinsic value--the only thing that is good in itself. Although invented by 19th-century Britons, notably Jeremy Bentham and J.S. Mill, utilitarianism has some claim to be the official philosophy of the U.S.A. or, as a philosopher might have it, the 'Utilitarian States of America.' In America, happiness is what makes life good, and unhappiness is what makes it bad. We must therefore seize the former and avoid the latter. Eric G. Wilson, a professor of English at Wake Forest University, disagrees, contending that utilitarianism has it the wrong way around. The 'happy types, ' as he calls them, are apt to be bland, superficial, static, hollow, one-sided, bovine, acquisitive, deluded and foolish. Sold on the ideal of the happy smile and the cheerful salutation, they patrol the malls in dull uniformity, zombie-like, searching for contentment and pleasure, locked inside their own dreams of a secure and unblemished world, oblivious to objective reality, cocooned in a protective layer of bemused well-being . . . Mr. Wilson's basic thesis is that, without suffering, the human soul becomes stagnant and empty. We can only reach our full potential through pain--not a pathological kind of pain but the kind that comes from a recognition of death, decay and the bad day (or decade). We must live between the poles of sadness and joy and not try to expunge misery from our lives. Mr. Wilson makes a strong case for this anti-utilitarianism, in prose both spare and lavish. (Of Coleridge he writes: 'He was hurt into these sublimities. He was axed into ecstasy.') And indeed, to deny our essential sadness in the face of a tragic world is to suppress a large part of what we are as human beings. It is to retreat into a fearful solipsism, refusing to peep out into the world beyond--an approach to life that is all the more fatuous in that it can never succeed . . . Mr. Wilson's case for the dark night of the soul brings a much needed corrective to today's mania for cheerfulness. One would almost say that, in its eloquent contrarianism and earnest search for meaning, "Against Happiness" lifts the spirits."--Colin McGinn, "The Wall Street Journal""
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" Wilson has] the passionate soul of a nineteenth-century

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Hardcover, 166 pages

Published January 22nd 2008 by Sarah Crichton Books (first published 2008)

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Apr 06, 2008

Kirk rated it

For such a short book it sure took me a long time to get around to this, but I wanted to knock it out in one sitting. Wilson's approach is essentially an effort to explain the benefits of Romantic melancholy to a "don't worry, be happy" world. It's a daunting task given that Americans in particular prefer the cheery optimism of the manifest destiny soul to the sublime darkness of the introverted soul. While I generally liked the book, I found some of the points and examples came and we...more

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Mar 13, 2008

Jafar rated it

One of the things that any foreigner who’s lived in the U.S. long enough will eventually notice is how fixated Americans in general are with being, and being perceived as, happy. There’s quite a contrast with the rest of the world, as it’s pointed out very well in this book. In the rest of the world, you’re not committing social suicide if you don’t project a happy image of yourself.

Needless to say, making Americans happy has turned into quite a business. Who knows how much is spent...moreOne of the things that any foreigner who’s lived in the U.S. long enough will eventually notice is how fixated Americans in general are with being, and being perceived as, happy. There’s quite a contrast with the rest of the world, as it’s pointed out very well in this book. In the rest of the world, you’re not committing social suicide if you don’t project a happy image of yourself.

Needless to say, making Americans happy has turned into quite a business. Who knows how much is spent on drugs and therapy and self help books and New Age gurus. (One particularly narcissistic aspect of this happiness business is the artificial boosting of self-esteem. I’d be very interested to know how much Americans spend annually to read or be told that they’re special and unique and beautiful and great. But that’s another subject.) However, when you read that 85% of Americans describe themselves as being very happy or happy, you can’t help but suspect that at least some of these happy campers are lying to themselves (denial, repression) and/or others (conforming to social expectations).

One thing that I really liked about Wilson’s analysis is how he links the American fixation on happiness with “the American dream.” With the near-successful conversion of America into a giant dull suburb with its cookie-cutter housing developments and shopping malls filled with the same chain stores, the next logical thing would be to do the same with human traits. Define any personality quirk and any deviation from the standard happy model as a disease that should be medicated out of existence. Turn everyone into the same drab Pollyanna going around with a painted smile proclaiming: “I’m happy. I’m special.” It’s good for business. Ask Republicans. They consistently report to be happier than Democrats.

Wilson tries to make a case that this kind of hollow happiness only breeds blandness; it forgets an essential part of a full human life; it ignores the value of agony to feel real ecstasy. Melancholy (not to be confused with the lethargic state of clinical depression) can and does create an agitation in the heart and mind that propels one to question the status quo and produce new ways of seeing and being. There are the countless artists and poets and geniuses to prove this point. Wilson mentions some of them as anecdotes. In the end, I’m not sure how convincing this book is to every reader, but Wilson’s near-poetic prose should be a joy to read for everyone.
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Jul 19, 2008

Mark Desrosiers rated it

Shelves: overrated-drivel

Just so there's no misunderstanding: I totally concur with Wilson's thesis, which is that "happiness" is not the natural human condition (indeed, it's possibly a recent invention), and suffering (or, as he keeps calling it, "melancholia" [*retch*]) is not only more valuable creatively, but closer to the human norm.

But wow, this book is just godawful.

First problem: he completely avoids the fertile relationship between capitalism, "happiness",...more

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May 17, 2008

Katherine rated it

Recommends it for: freshman comp classes, as a companion volume (negative examples) to strunk & white.

Shelves: moods, newer-nonfiction

It's no secret that I'm into books about our inner mental states, and the trouble they sometimes give us. So when a review copy of "Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy," by Wake Forest University English professor Eric G. Wilson came to the office, I greedily snatched it up.

What we've got here is a collection of four essays plus an introduction and conclusion. Wilson lets on that he's experienced depression, which he prefers to call melancholia, all his life. He does...moreIt's no secret that I'm into books about our inner mental states, and the trouble they sometimes give us. So when a review copy of "Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy," by Wake Forest University English professor Eric G. Wilson came to the office, I greedily snatched it up.

What we've got here is a collection of four essays plus an introduction and conclusion. Wilson lets on that he's experienced depression, which he prefers to call melancholia, all his life. He doesn't go into his own personal experience much, but enough to let us know that he's slowly decided to take pride in his mental constitution. He is a melancholic and proud of it.

When he's not talking directly about himself, Wilson is using examples from literature (he likes Melville and Coleridge), or making broad sociological/philosophical claims about America at large. These claims fill most of the first essay, and I think they're the weakest part of the book. They're sweeping and not backed up, so I found myself disagreeing with him every step of the way, just out of crankiness. He argues that the majority of Americans are what he derogatively terms "happy types": not genuinely happy, but sort of Stepford-sitcom-hyperconsumerist happy. That's not a super new argument, I don't think, but it's one that I could probably have much sympathy for if it were presented in a subtle, persuasive way. Instead, Wilson takes such a superior, we-sensitive-souls-versus-all-those-vulgar-Americans tone, that I'm dying to separate myself from hm any way that I can. When he talks about the "mall mentality" afflicting these sanguine Americans, I feel like I'm reading something from the late '80s or early '90s. When is the last time you heard someone inveigh against malls? Wasn't that all the rage 15 years ago? One gets the feeling that Wilson's critique has been forged without a lot of direct observation of the world around him. I would have appreciated more specific details: show me a "happy type," for real, or else just stick to talking about yourself and/or the books that you know.

Overall, Wilson's point is that melancholy can be a fertile state of mind. He talks quite a bit about famous artists and writers who struggled with their moods. He seems to be saying that melancholics perceive the world more deeply than other kinds of people. But here we get to the root of my problem with the book: it's not his message, which is sort of fine-but-not-earthshaking. It's his tone. I didn't know that anyone still made prose in this particular shade of purple. Wilson writes, I'm afraid, like the lifelong English professor who's finally getting a chance to write the "creative" book he's always wanted to do. At last, a chance to be poetic, to give free rein to the imagination! Batten down the hatches, people. Wilson's hyper-aestheticized version of melancholia is enough to make the J. Peterman catalog sound staid. (And yet, it does sound like the language of advertising. He's got the almost-Victorian maudlin thing down cold.)

"We melancholy souls no doubt feel keenly the loss of our great old cityscapes and our forests and marshes. We love the beautiful ruins of aged buildings. We love the intricate architectural designs, the carvings and the mosaics and the rough stones. We love high ceilings and crown moldings. We love worn-down hardwood floors. We love the smell of rusting radiators. We love rickety windows that rattle in the wind. We also adore those ancient and lovely woodlands where we can walk alone and hear distant geese honking over the horizon. We can't get enough of trees in winter, of the thin brownish pines wisping among the oaks that never move. We are mad about the mucky earth covered in dead leaves. We inhale the nostalgic air and feel alive." (58-59)

Okay. So "we" love crown moldings. Even if Wilson weren't presuming to ascribe his bourgeois tastes (I mean, he knows they're bourgeois, right???) to all of us, I'd still prefer 20,000 words about J. Peterman's weathered but loyal leather mailbag.

"Against Happiness" is a good example of a book whose delivery and sloppy argumentation completely turned me off from some conclusions that I'd usually more or less agree with.
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May 04, 2008

Mike rated it

Shelves: philosophy

I heard the author interviewed on NPR, and this sounded interesting, so I gave it a shot. I was only able to read 30 pages before I threw the book down in disgust. This thing is an essay that has been padded with just enough ridiculously melodramatic prose to justify being categorized as a book. I can't believe this guy teaches at the university level. The premise is sound, but there is way too much fluff to get through; I couldn't stomach it. Absolute disappointment.

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May 02, 2009

Chrisy rated it

Excellent book, some sections in the middle are a bit slow, too steeped in philosophy for me, but most of it is good, the last couple of chapters especially. The author does a good job of exploring the shifting moods that many people go through that appear to be depression, and what that is all about... he brings it all around to how it's part of the human earthly condition to go through these melancholy moods---if we didn't we wouldn't be alive...and that in many cases it is melancholy or deali...more

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Jul 26, 2008

Ill rated it

I love a rant. One tormented soul railing against the world: yes. Also, I'm not that into happiness. Don't get me wrong, I love fun and not feeling like shit all the time or whatever, but I'm just not one with a sunny disposition...and I like it that way. Hell, sometimes feeling like shit is the only way to properly align yourself with the world.
At times Wilson's writing was beautiful and sad. He argued eloquently against the destruction wreaked by the happy majority. He described with som...more

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Apr 14, 2008

Cjasper rated it

Shelves: my-books

So my obsession with happiness is satisfied for the time being. It was interesting to read a totally different approach to the topic - this one from a reader of literature. I agree, what many Americans call happiness is an empty shell of existence and medicating to lessen negative emotions may rob me of a chance to grow. I think emotions are a gift - a message or clue from your psyche or spirit which is trying to express itself. We try hard to connect with our inner spirit, but I think stron...more

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Feb 29, 2008

Suzanne rated it

The premise was interesting- that you need to feel sadness to experience the breadth that life has to offer. But I don't think he understands that depression is usually not productive. He argues that the pain that great artists who committed suicide felt was worth it because it brought such beauty to humanity- which seems self-centered to me. And his defintion of beauty is that which makes you remember death. I think there's a lot more to beauty than that. Also he was really repetitive in t...more

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Nov 16, 2010

Hayley Smith-Kirkham rated it

Shelves: new-lit-random

I thought I hated it at first, but I came around rather quickly. I think what was turning me off were his grand statements in the introduction (and again in the conclusion) that seek to make all these fabulous but highly superficial and elementary connections between things/phenomena. Although he obviously put a good amount of research into a number of things in order to write this book, sometimes he passed beyond the realm of what he had researched and I have to wonder if he winced as he made...more

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Mar 29, 2010

Bob Hoffman rated it

A recent poll by the Pew Research Center showed that 85% of Americans believe they are very happy or at least happy. But how can this be the case in a world beset by so many problems—where one billion of the world’s citizens don’t have clean water, where at least that many regularly go to bed hungry, where the polar ice caps are melting, oceans are rising, wars raging, and natural disasters regularly devastating the planet?

Everywhere we look, says author, Eric Wilson, we see the big ...moreA recent poll by the Pew Research Center showed that 85% of Americans believe they are very happy or at least happy. But how can this be the case in a world beset by so many problems—where one billion of the world’s citizens don’t have clean water, where at least that many regularly go to bed hungry, where the polar ice caps are melting, oceans are rising, wars raging, and natural disasters regularly devastating the planet?

Everywhere we look, says author, Eric Wilson, we see the big yellow smiley face. Everywhere we listen, we hear, “have a nice day.” Our colleges have become happiness schools. Our churches teach us how to become joyful. Even our elected officials regularly remind us of our right to pursue happiness.
But isn’t there value in other emotions too? Should we really seek to be happy all the time? Wilson, in this book with the unusual title, makes a strong case that we weren’t meant to always be happy and that our nation’s doctors probably overprescribe anti-depressants. He has no issues with treating clinical depression, but wonders whether we are treating all sadness as if it was something that needed to be medicated away.

He reminds us that people who are comfortable with their own feelings—even if those are feelings of melancholy-- are more inclined to express themselves creatively. This is because those who suffer are able to impart a degree of meaning to their experiences, and thus are able to more thoroughly appreciate both the happy and sad spectrum of their lives.

Jesus Christ—who before his crucifixion prayed and struggled mightily, indeed sweat great drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane-- has often been called the man of sorrows. Abraham Lincoln suffered the dark night of the soul. Beethoven and Emily Dickinson and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Herman Melville and and Leo Tolstoy and Joni Mitchell and John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen and many other artists were known as individuals who not only suffered through melancholia, but also often became powerfully creative during their dark nights.

Whether you agree with Wilson's black-or-white stand or not, one thing is certain: he presents a good argument. If you have ever thought about the link between depression and creativity—or even if you haven’t-- you should consider reading ‘Against Happiness.’
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Jun 09, 2009

Nancy rated it

(This review is long and ranty. You've been warned!)

If I could give this book ZERO stars, I'd do it. It's truly awful. Awful in a train-wreck/can't-look-away sense.

It's too bad, because he has some good points. I'll summarize them here, to save you the trouble:

1) True joy or happiness can only be experienced by comparison with true sadness, existential doubt, and grief. By dodging the "bad", we don't have the proper tools to appreciate the "go...more

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Apr 12, 2009

Shaun rated it

After looking through this, I was expecting something different. Based on the title, I was expecting to have a psychological bent to it. It has some of it, but there’s more of a literature outlook to it. Wilson uses various aesthetes to explain what he’s talking about.

To start, the introduction is what hooked me in. When we think of melancholia, we think of something sad, disastrous, and a troublesome thing to have. But Wilson laments this. Annihilating melancholia will get rid o...more

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Dec 01, 2008

Mike rated it

Shelves: essay, lit-criticism, mental-illness, non-fiction, spiritual, z-read-in-2008

This is, overall, a very fine essay, I thought. And enjoyable to read, too. It's an us-versus-them-style polemic in support of melancholics and against "happy types." The central premise here (that sadness and depression and grief make us more acutely aware of and appreciative of beauty, and more contemplative and broader minded in general) is probably not that profound, but the author weaves lots of other interesting arguments in along the way, too, and lots of well-
presented...moreThis is, overall, a very fine essay, I thought. And enjoyable to read, too. It's an us-versus-them-style polemic in support of melancholics and against "happy types." The central premise here (that sadness and depression and grief make us more acutely aware of and appreciative of beauty, and more contemplative and broader minded in general) is probably not that profound, but the author weaves lots of other interesting arguments in along the way, too, and lots of well-
presented case studies of famous melancholics in history, like Beethoven and Keats and Mark Rothko, for example.

When he writes about "happy types," which he sees as a cause and a symptom and a scourge of modern-day American life, it's mostly with vitriol and disgust. These parts will offend some readers, I guess (especially you happy types, perhaps!). When he writes about melancholics and melancholia, it's with the utmost kindness and sympathy and respect. Empathy, also, I guess, inasmuch as the author declares himself to be a lifelong melancholic and sometime depressive.

This is mostly a very cogent and interesting and convincing essay. I strongly recommend it to melancholics and anyone else who cares to think about the human condition in modern-day America and think they might find this spin on it interesting. For my money, this is as well argued and presented, and as relevant to its times, as any Ralph Waldo Emerson essay was in its times.

Here's a couple of paragraphs that I especially appreciated. He's talking here about what he calls "romantic irony," a side effect of being sad or having a gloomy outlook on life:

"Though it often organizes literary expression, Romantic irony is basically an attitude, a disposition, a way of being. It is a method for making sense of the world without being dogmatic, for remaining open-minded in the face of inevitable indeterminacy, for being able to remain in an interpretive limbo, aware of the fact that no one perspective on the world is ever finally true. The person who is
ironic in this way ultimately takes life seriously and not seriously at the same time. He knows that his experience of the world is dynamic, vital, fascinating. But he also realizes that this same experience is utterly inadequate, incomplete, banal. He has his world and leaves it, too.

"Romantic irony and melancholia are inseparable. To be melancholy is to live in perpetual doubt, persistent confusion. Such vague bewilderment, properly seen, is not a failure of knowledge. It is rather an honest willingness to accept the fact that we can never know anything once and for all, that we are inevitably ignorant of the whole truth. Accepting this, we must often endure a gloomy limbo. But we are also open to the brisk interplay between life's oppositions and the possibility of understanding, however briefly, the nature of the interplay. Such openness is necessarily ironic, for it never grasps wholeheartedly at one interpretation or another, at one antinomy or another. This open stance is indeed playful, bordering on innocence, fully attuned to possibility, the irreducible ambiguity of experience, the uncertain and bumbling murmurings of time."(less)

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Aug 08, 2011

Peacegal rated it

Don’t get me wrong, I really like the idea of this book. On shelves crowded with innumerable get-happy-quick guides, it is refreshing to see an author who realizes that lifelong bliss is neither possible nor desirable. Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

There’s a cut-and-paste feel to the text; Wilson doesn’t seem to know exactly what type of book he wishes to write, so he tries to write them all. He goes from being too dense to too breezy in the space of a coupl...moreDon’t get me wrong, I really like the idea of this book. On shelves crowded with innumerable get-happy-quick guides, it is refreshing to see an author who realizes that lifelong bliss is neither possible nor desirable. Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

There’s a cut-and-paste feel to the text; Wilson doesn’t seem to know exactly what type of book he wishes to write, so he tries to write them all. He goes from being too dense to too breezy in the space of a couple pages. And he seems to have latched on to certain words, using them over and over and OVER. Not to mention, Beatles fans will not be happy when they see how badly Wilson mistakes certain dates in John Lennon’s life.

To the melancholy personality, our cultural ideal of boundless joy and satisfaction rings hollow and fake. I’ve learned to live with my own dark feelings; despite years of being urged otherwise, I still expect failure in everything I do. I still allow my life to be ruined by the foibles and casual cruelties of other people. Is it going to change? Of course not. And I accept the fact that others have more control over my mental state than I do. I’ve handed over my brain, so to say, and there is a kind of peace in accepting that.

However, Wilson’s flippant dismissal of Prozac, Lexapro, and other SSRI drugs indicates to me that he has never taken them. The author seems to think that you just pop a pill and, boom, you’ve turned into one of the personalities on Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” video. Why, because of these pills, Americans are in as much danger of losing melancholia as they are the California condor! There’s nothing the least bit true about this. SSRIs are not magical “happy pills;” they do not erase feelings of sadness or anxiety. They might help you avoid bursting into tears at work when a customer looks at you the wrong way, and they do create some unexplainably psychedelic dreams and some entertaining hand tremors. But no, even if the entire population was to be dosed with Prozac, we would not lose our artists and dreamers and people who feel deeply. Melancholy is safe, and too tough to be beaten down by mere milligrams.
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Apr 11, 2011

Ghada rated it

Shelves: 52-books

This book is a long, long essay about melancholy, and how it is the more “natural” ground state of humans. The author basically argues that happiness is not the normal human condition, and how while people are always feigning happiness in order to appear perfect, they are actually hindering their capabilities. He thinks that within melancholy lays a deeper and more fulfilling life; in terms of intellectual productivity and creativity. The sample of people that his observations are based on is th...more

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Oct 24, 2010

Ashleigh rated it

The only imperfect part of Against Happiness is Wilson's slight dip into overly poetic language; at some points it's almost prose-poetry. But we are talking about authenticity here so if that's how he really feels...
His blunt sociological commentary on faking happiness instead of searching for joy and dismissing melancholy as depression is spot on. Being sad is more than ok - pretending to be happy is detrimental.

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Jan 02, 2009

James rated it

Shelves: essay, non-fiction

I agree with the basic premise that we shouldn't pathologize melancholy. I've been dealing with anxiety and depression since age 10, so I'm definitely interested in this topic.

But I'm disappointed in the author's generalizations. Ironically, he rails against the "mall mentality," which encourages people to view the world in abstractions. But that's exactly what he does. Happy people have a simplistic view of the world. In contrast, melancholy people are fascinatingly compl...more

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Jun 19, 2009

Jenny rated it

Shelves: non-fiction

Didn't love this, but am inclined to think that is more my fault than the author's; not sure. The prose did not seem well organized, and I was put off by the author's constant "us-them" positioning (where "us" refers to the melancholy types and "them" refers to the happy types). Had trouble concentrating on it but I started to come round toward the end.

"Insights, we realize, are like coats for the celeritous seasons; they are good only for a brief...more

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Apr 15, 2009

Timmy rated it

Here's a book that I where I basically agree with the premise and couldn't stand the author's delivery on that premise. The idea of the book is that Americans are obsessed with the idea of becoming happy. That happiness is our right and our goal and if we aren't happy not only is something terribly wrong but we must do something to fix it right now. Great! Our addiction to self-help and instant gratification has been unmasked! It was basically an unreadable rant against the woes of modern s...more

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Jan 06, 2011

Frank Roberts rated it

Shelves: theology-philosophy

A book like a big, savory steak--delightful to the senses and nourishing to the soul.

Wilson decries our American pursuit of contentedness--which is not the contentment of a soul at peace but rather the drug-induced, painted-on, synthetic grin of a death mask. Outwardly we are flat, plastic, "go-getting" and "fine", but inwardly we churn with anxiety and pain. Wilson calls upon us to embrace those darker feelings--to embrace melancholy. To be melancholy is to see ...more

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Jun 15, 2009

getAbstract rated it

An ode to the power of negative thinking

In this candid and unconventional book, English professor and humanist Eric G. Wilson positions himself as melancholy’s champion. He does everything but wave gloomy pom-poms as he extols its role in creativity and invention. As counterintuitive and loopy as his view may seem, Wilson makes a strong, lucid case for feeling glum. Indeed, reading Wilson’s book may inspire you trade in your grin for a wholehearted frown. If you seek a change from th...more

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Jul 26, 2008

Modern Hermeneut rated it

Recommends it for: the kind of people who would buy a book called "Against Happiness"

You will breeze through this upliftingly world-weary book...assuming you already agree with everything the author says and you aren't blinkered by the vacuous profiteers of the "happiness lobby" (I'm looking at YOU, Dalai Lama).

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Mar 13, 2008

Lotte rated it

A quick read and I'm glad of it because I wasn't as impressed with any of the author's supporting arguments as I wanted to be, even though his overall idea was interesting.

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Feb 29, 2008

James Blake rated it

Ok book, but he gets a little preachy at some points (where it does not really flow with the book). He almost would have been better served by making a novel out his thesis.

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May 03, 2009

Melissa Davanzo rated it

I didn't go into reading this book with high expectations, more like curiousity as to what the author had to say, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise. In fact i related to much of what the author had to say, and agreed that the impermanence of some of the most amazing sights and experiences helps us to appreciate them more. Wanting to live in a state of constent happiness and without disappointment is unrealistic and contrary to the ebb and flow of the rest of the universe. As unpleasant a...more

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Jan 15, 2009

Christiane rated it

Shelves: non-fiction

I agree with many of Wilson's points, but I admit I found the book hard to read. It's a short book that feels long. Maybe I've been out of school for too many years, but I now find sentences like "He [Keats:]did so because he understood that suffering and death are not aberrations to be cursed but necessary parts of a capacious existence, a personal history attuned to the plentiful polarity of the cosmos" a little pretentious. Wilson also has nothing but scorn for happy Americans. ...more

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Feb 28, 2009

Stickyleft rated it

Eric Wilson is one of those authors who go on and on and on without saying a thing. One idea, three paragraphs. Against Happiness is the most verbose work I've ever read.

I was upset to find after opening this book that the authors point was lost somewhere between point A and point F on the slippery slope of logic. Every observation the author made was of such a limited scope that by the end of the first chapter I was convinced he had based them all off of some bizarr...more

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Mar 17, 2009

grackyfrogg rated it

i really, really wanted to like this book. unfortunately, the author turned a thought-provoking essay on the potential benefits of sorrow, suffering and the unpredictability of life into a long-winded diatribe in which he pits personality types against each other: "we melancholy types" (i.e., people who understand how right the author is, because they are like him in temperament) vs. "those happy types" (i.e., the unenlightened masses who don't realize how wrong, and sad, the...more

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Jul 30, 2011

Benjamin Vogt rated it

I am Eric Wilson. He and I would get along well, or not well, since we both seem to have an aversion to most people. Here's the deal with this book--when Wilson brings in literature, and psychology, and philosphy, he hits a homerun. But when he goes on and on for pages waxing in vagueness about being melancholoy--with no examples to illustrate or involve the reader--it gets tedious. This book could have been 2/3 the length, and I guess that's why it's in such a cute, pocket size. And too darn ha...more

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“Surely some of you have felt the same way that I do. You have turned sullenly from those thousands of glowing, perfect teeth lighting the American landscape and slouched to the darkness—the half-lighted room, the twilight forest, the empty café. There you have sat and settled into the bare, hard fact that the world is terrible in its beauty, indifferent much of the time, incoherent and nervous and resplendent when on certain evenings, when the clouds are right, a furious owl swooshes luridly from the horizon. You feel that sweet pressure behind your eyes, as if you would at any minute explode into hot tears. You long to languish in this unnamed sadness, this vague sense that everything is precious because it is dying, because you can never hold it, because it exists for only an instant.” — 6 people liked it

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